Oracle Blog

The Test Drive: Chhandomay on Sun Product Reviews

At a Glance: Last Week's Reviews

NetBeans
Starting
off last week’s positive reviews was eWEEK’s Jeff Cogswell, who reviewed
NetBeans IDE 6.7, finding that while
it’s a
.7 release, it “includes so many new features it could rightfully
receive a full version increment.” A long-time fan of NetBeans blogged
that version
6.7 was
“faster than its predecessors,”
and also noted its
native integration, which he called “impressive.” Blogger
Haroon wrote
that NetBeans 6.7’s native Maven integration was a “good and
productive” feature that convinced him to “shift from Eclipse to
NetBeans 6.7.” Lastly, long time NetBeans
user Iwan Eising praised
Version 6.7’s almost seamless compatibility with older versions, saying
that it “makes testing NetBeans a better experience.”

VirtualBox
Jeff
James at Windows IT Pro gave
top marks to VirtualBox 3.0, calling it “an impressive product with
an unbeatable price tag” that “competes well with the likes of
VMware Workstation and Parallels Desktop.”
Blogger Haroon wrote
about
his
first experience with VirtualBox
saying, “I
find it really awesome,” and noted that in full-screen mode, no-one
could tell that the guest OS such as Vista or XP was actually running
over Ubuntu. Another
blogger wrote
that VirtualBox was the ideal program for a “developer that wants
to tinker,”
and pointed out that “server
consolidation is one great thing VirtualBox can offer.” Rounding
out the group was a blogger from
Techfuels who posted
instructions on how to save VirtualBox to a portable drive to run
consistently on any desktop,
noting that “these
techniques allow you to be completely independent.”

MySQL
Bloggers
this week explored a variety of useful MySQL tools, with one from
Development GuRu taking advantage of the MySQL Optimize Table
command.
He called
it “very useful for tables that are frequently updated and/or
deleted.” Blogger Grig Gheorghiu focused on managing multiple MySQL
instances, and concluded
that the MySQL Sandbox “does
make your life much easier.”

OpenOffice
Linux.com’s
Jacqueline Emigh kicked off the reviews for OpenOffice.org this week, recommending
OpenOffice.org's Write program for anyone “seeking a smooth
learning curve from MS Word.” Another blogger described
the OpenOffice Suite in Ubuntu as “the perfect blend you need for
all your office needs.” LinuxJournal’s Bruce Byfield chimed
in with a tutorial on using OpenOffice’s DataPilots, which he
said offered “convenient ways to perform statistical analyses.”
Finally, a blogger got hands-on with OpenOffice.org and created
a template and tutorial for making printable flash cards.

JavaFX
Java
Pilot blogger Walter Bogaardt reported
on his testing of JavaFX, noting that “it definitely gives a face
lift to the Java GUI applications from an RIA.” Another blogger,
who had read reports of large scene graphs affecting JavaFX
performance, re-evaluated
a game he had written and offered JavaFX optimization tips along the
way. Finally, a blogger decided
to experiment with Maven, stating that using JavaFX 1.2 with
Maven 2.2 made it “somewhat easy to integrate a build with JavaFX
complier.”